3D printing car spares and selling on ebay
Discussion
Do any PHers have any experience of making or having made plastic car components on 3D printers and selling them on eBay? I ask because of a recent experience.
My python hunting son spends his holidays here in Miami hunting snakes in the Everglades. He was beating the crap out of his sister’s and occasionally my cars down the gravel roads, so I decided to buy a cheap car that he could use. Accordingly I bought an ancient Jeep Wrangler with the good old 4 litre straight six and a manual box.
From the outset the gear lever was a very floppy affair, not centering in the 3rd 4th channel as it should. Fearing buggered détente springs I took the mechanism apart to find that the centering function was carried out by a spring washer arrangement in the shifter tower that bolts onto the top of the box. Inside the shifter tower I found a broken nylon bushing that, to my surprise, can not be bought for a couple of dollars online. They only sell the entire shift tower.
This pissed me off and I lovingly made a new bushing by machining a piece of nylon, the gear change is now as it should be. But this got me thinking. My research on the net had revealed plenty of other owners of cars equipped with this gearbox looking for these little nylon bushes, so why not have some made on a 3D printer and flog them on eBay?
So I downloaded some free CAD software and drew up the bushing, made an STL file, and have today ordered a couple of bushings made in PA11 nylon. I’ll put these in the gearbox shift tower and see if they can withstand an overexcited python hunter crashing through the gears.
My concerns are how they will hold up in a bath of hot grease and the compressive loads that they will face, but my research seems to suggest that they might work ok. I’ve already started making a new CAD file with lots of these bushings joined together by sprues so I can get them printed in quantity at a reasonable price.
Curious to know if anyone has printed plastic engine components that can stand up to oil and heat - there are other 3D printer materials that might be better than the PA11, e.g. maybe PEEK or polycarbonate? Has anyone successfully made themselves pocket money doing this? Would be interested to know, even if it merely demonstrates that I’m wasting my time!
My python hunting son spends his holidays here in Miami hunting snakes in the Everglades. He was beating the crap out of his sister’s and occasionally my cars down the gravel roads, so I decided to buy a cheap car that he could use. Accordingly I bought an ancient Jeep Wrangler with the good old 4 litre straight six and a manual box.
From the outset the gear lever was a very floppy affair, not centering in the 3rd 4th channel as it should. Fearing buggered détente springs I took the mechanism apart to find that the centering function was carried out by a spring washer arrangement in the shifter tower that bolts onto the top of the box. Inside the shifter tower I found a broken nylon bushing that, to my surprise, can not be bought for a couple of dollars online. They only sell the entire shift tower.
This pissed me off and I lovingly made a new bushing by machining a piece of nylon, the gear change is now as it should be. But this got me thinking. My research on the net had revealed plenty of other owners of cars equipped with this gearbox looking for these little nylon bushes, so why not have some made on a 3D printer and flog them on eBay?
So I downloaded some free CAD software and drew up the bushing, made an STL file, and have today ordered a couple of bushings made in PA11 nylon. I’ll put these in the gearbox shift tower and see if they can withstand an overexcited python hunter crashing through the gears.
My concerns are how they will hold up in a bath of hot grease and the compressive loads that they will face, but my research seems to suggest that they might work ok. I’ve already started making a new CAD file with lots of these bushings joined together by sprues so I can get them printed in quantity at a reasonable price.
Curious to know if anyone has printed plastic engine components that can stand up to oil and heat - there are other 3D printer materials that might be better than the PA11, e.g. maybe PEEK or polycarbonate? Has anyone successfully made themselves pocket money doing this? Would be interested to know, even if it merely demonstrates that I’m wasting my time!
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